Nobel Prize money cut amid economic crisis

Nobel Prize organizers have announced a cut in cash amounts to prize winners.
The Nobel Foundation blamed the global economic crisis for the move, which will see a 20 percent cut in the prize money, reports claimed on Tuesday.

The foundation said the returns on its capital had not grown at the same rate as its costs, and that future winners would receive 1.1 million dollars (£700,000). The money that prize winners are awarded was donated by chemist Alfred Nobel in his will.

“At its meeting on June 11, 2012, the board of directors of the Nobel Foundation set the amount of the 2012 Nobel Prizes at 8.0 million Swedish kronor ($1.14 million) per prize,” the foundation said in a statement.

That meant it was effectively lowering the prize sum from the 10 million kronor that has been given for each award since 2001, the statement added.

The move was “a necessary measure in order to avoid an undermining of its capital in a long-term perspective”, said the statement.

Foundation chief Lars Heikensten said that the decision had been a difficult one to make. But he stressed that “there is a lot of turbulence in financial markets, a crisis, and there is also reason to believe that we may have a number of quite difficult years ahead”.